contrast to the openness of settlement on the sage plains, the Northwestern states present a number of areas devoted to fruit growing, where agricultural populations attain a closeness of social organization approximating the incorporated towns. Thus they are able to give themselves those fundamental advantages of living represented by the modern home, with its water and sewer services, its electric light and electric power and garden irrigation; schools equal to those of the towns; clubs, lodges, churches; convenient stores, shops, etc. If one were asked to point to a region where rural life in the United States is at its best, socially considered, he would probably designate one or another of these favoured settlements, of which it is commonly said that they enjoy all the advantages of the town combined with those of the country. They differ from the New England villages of early times and yet have the promise of an influence similar in many respects. In them co-operation is fostered, the community spirit dominates the individual, leaders are discovered and public opinion takes on an organic character to replace the anarchic, chaotic quality it so frequently presents under less hopeful circumstances.
Changes in farm life. Rural life in the ordinary farming sections like the Williamette Valley is passing through marked changes due to the breaking-up of the large farms of pioneer times, the improvement of roads, the construction of electric rail lines, the telephone and the automobile. The effort to improve social conditions is perhaps as determined here as else
